While thus the motive of the medicine-man in compounding his loathsome
mess is wholly necromantic, serious consequences of its use must
occasionally supervene; and though these may be incidental so far
as the philosophy is concerned, they may tend reflexly toward the
perpetuation of the custom. In the course of the preparation of the
charm-poison, and especially in the final ripening process, morbific
germs and ptomaines must be developed; these may retain their virulence
up to the time of use, particularly when a batch of poison is prepared
for a special occasion and the arrows are used while the application
is still fresh; and in such cases the wound might initiate septicemia
of the sort described in Castañeda’s early narrative and still more
clearly displayed by Señor Encinas’ saddle-horse (ante, p. 112).
Naturally the incidentally zymotic varnish frequently fails of effect,
and can hardly be expected to remain morbific long enough to be
detected in laboratory experiments; yet it is probable, as attested by
Mashém’s guarded expressions, that the occasionally terrible results of
such poisoning are within the ken of the Seri shamans.
It is noteworthy that the various early accounts of the Seri
arrow-poisoning are strikingly consistent, though sufficiently diverse
to attest independence in origin; it is also noteworthy that several
of the accounts are given hesitatingly and half qualifiedly, with
alternative references (obviously hypothetical) to vegetal sources of
poison. Thus the author of “Rudo Ensayo” qualified a characteristic
(though brief) account of the preparation of the poison by adding:
“But this is mere guesswork, and no doubt the main ingredient is
some root.”[303] So, too, Hardy described the compounding of the
brew in much detail, adding the significant statement that “when the
whole mass is in a high state of corruption the old women take the
arrows and pass their points through it”; yet he could not resist the
alternative hypothesis, and added: “Others again say that the poison is
obtained from the juice of the yerba de la flécha (arrow-wort).”[304]
Bartlett “was told that the Ceris tip their arrows with poison; but
how it was effected I [he] could not learn,” and so he contented
himself with quoting Hardy’s account.[305] Stone gave the recipe in
fairly similar terms, adding that the morbific mass is hung up “to
putrefy in a bag, and in the drippings of this bag they soak their
arrowheads”; and he gave a characteristic account of the effect of a
wound from a poisoned arrow on a human subject (ante, p. 100). Pajeken
independently attested the virulence of the poison, and described the
consequences of a slight wound suffered by his horse (ante, p. 101),
while Pimentel gave independent corroboration, and Orozco y Berra
added the further information that the proverbially deadly poison
is fortified “by superstitious practices” (ante, p. 103). Bancroft
gave currency to the customary recipe, and also to the complementary
hypothesis that the “magot” may be the source of the poison; while
Dewey merely mentioned the reputed use of poisoned arrows. Like their
predecessors, the vaqueros of today are familiar with the tradition
of a necromantic brew; but many of them—like Don Jesus Omada, of
Bacuachito, and Don Ramon Noriega, of Pozo Noriega—display a much
more lively interest in the local yerba mala, or yerba de flécha, of
which they stand in such mortal dread that they can hardly be induced
to approach a clump of it, and which they conceive must add the final
crux to the brew. This plant was described in “Rudo Ensayo”: “Mago,
in the Opata language, is a small tree, very green, luxuriant, and
beautiful to the eye; but it contains a deadly juice which flows upon
making a slight incision in the bark. The natives rub their arrows
with it, and for this reason they call it arrow-grass; but at present
they use very little.”[306] Elsewhere the anonymous author mentions
the use of (presumably) this poison by the Jova, and describes it as
“so deadly that it kills not only the wounded person, but also him
who undertakes the cure by sucking the wound, as is customary with
all the Indians”; the description implying that the infection is
irremediable.[307] Yet he apparently discriminated this poison from
that of the Seri, for which another plant known as caramatraca is an
infallible remedy. On the whole it seems probable that the yerba mala
(_Sebastiano bilocularis?_), or yerba de flécha, or mago, or magot,
yielded or formed the standard arrow-poison of the Opata and perhaps of
other Indians, and that the ill-repute of the shrub survived and spread
throughout Mexicanized Sonora in such frequent repetition and common
belief as to affect the ideas of residents and travelers alike; but
it seems equally probable that the magic-inspired brew of the Seri is
entirely distinct.[308]
[303] Op. cit., p. 198; cf. ante, p. 78.
[304] Travels, p. 299; cf. ante, p. 87.
[305] Personal Narrative, p. 465.
[306] Op. cit., p. 161.
[307] Op. cit., pp. 187, 188.
[308] It should be noted that the actuality of the poisonous property
ascribed to the yerba mala is in some degree questionable; the plant
is the only one of southern Papagueria yielding suitable material
for arrow-shafts, and it is possible (if not probable) that it was
consecrated to this purpose by the aboriginal Opata and protected by
tabu in such wise as to become a sacred and fearsome thing. It is
accordingly by no means improbable that the reputed poisonous property
is but the product of generations of association, and that the plant is
really harmless—an inference supported by experiments on the part of
the leader of the 1895 expedition, who swallowed the juice of stem and
leaves in two or three minute but increasing doses without perceptible
effect. On the other hand, it should be observed that the region is one
abounding in toxic juices, and that this shrub is so luxuriant and so
free from thorny armament and other protective devices of a mechanical
sort as to raise the presumption that it must be protected against
herbivorous animals, at least, by chemical constituents of some kind
(cf. ante, p. 35).
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY